


Poor Execution

by papersandals (laronmi)



Series: College Verse [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drunk Sex, Multi, Poor handling of consent issues, Threesome - F/M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laronmi/pseuds/papersandals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. It started with a bowl of spiked punch and a very bad idea. Or, how not to fumble one's way into a threesome with one's best friends, as demonstrated by Riku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poor Execution

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be around 3-4K, but it rapidly got out of control. I felt like I dropped the ball on handling the consent issues arising with having sex with drunk people, but the way I wrote it originally read more like a lecture than anything else and would have extended the word count by at least another 10K, so I dropped it. As a result, I am deeply unsatisfied with how it was concluded, but I'm also kind of sick of writing this. I'm aware that that's no excuse for the poor handling of consent issues, though.

It started with a bowl of spiked punch and a very bad idea.

Not that the spiked punch wasn't a bad idea, but it hadn't been _his_ idea. He'd watched Axel pour in half a bottle of vodka, but contrary to expectations, he had neither the slightest trace of a maniacal grin nor a self-congratulatory smirk on his face. In fact, from the stone-faced way that Axel had poured, it seemed more like to Riku that Axel was disgruntled, as if spiking drinks at parties was his day job that he had grown increasingly bitter about until he no longer even knew if what he was doing was worth the satisfaction of a paycheck.

Which brought up the question of why Axel would want to spike the punch in the first place, but it wasn't as if Riku could ask him now, since the former was passed out on the couch, surrounded by Xion and Roxas and a box of barrettes that the two were fastidiously clipping into his hair with a single-minded focus that only the drunk had. It was less than he deserved.

No, the very bad idea wasn't the spiked punch nor the massive amounts of underaged drinking happening in his apartment, and although Riku would have liked to suggest that the spiked punch had nothing to do with the idea, it kind of did. Sora and Kairi drank it and somehow didn't notice the taste of half a bottle of vodka that was mixed in it. Riku thought about warning the two of them, he really did, but Sora had declared loudly when they entered that he was going to get smashed or else, and Kairi had just giggled and said she'd join him before the two of them set off for the table that held all the non-alcoholic beverages, leaving Riku confused and wondering if they knew that the booze was, in fact, somewhere else.

"Did you know the punch was spiked?"

He glanced down at Naminé, who had a red plastic cup of the death punch in her hands. She took a sip—which gave Riku cause for concern because she had never to his knowledge consumed alcohol before—and stared at him.

"I saw Axel dump half a bottle of vodka in it."

"Ah," she said quietly, taking another sip before casting her gaze out onto the floor, where Sora and Kairi were doing a dance move together that involved a lot of falling on their butts. "Well, the two of them got their wish."

Riku sighed and chugged his cola. That was also not the very bad idea, although he did chug it a little too fast and ended up burping while drinking, causing some of it to spill on his shirt. Naminé side-eyed him as politely as it was possible to side-eye someone as she took slow little sips of the spiked punch while he swore and dabbed at his shirt with a napkin.

"Have you," she said once Riku gave up and tossed the soggy napkin into a trash bin, "talked to Sora and Kairi tonight?"

He crushed the can of soda with one hand and tossed in the bin as well. "No. They seemed preoccupied with the wonders of finding themselves completely smashed. Why?"

Naminé shrugged in a manner that implied she knew more than she was letting on. "Kairi seemed to have something on her mind. By the way, I won't be needing a ride back. I think between the three of them," she glanced over at the couch Axel, Roxas, and Xion were occupying, and Riku winced in sympathy when he saw that Xion and Roxas had moved on to braiding ribbons in Axel's hair, "they'll need someone who won't be completely hung over tomorrow morning to help clean up."

Riku frowned at her. She didn't appear to have had much of the death punch, yet she didn’t seem like the type to hold her alcohol well either. "You know that I'm the one who lives here, right? And not you? Not that I won't appreciate the help, since Axel will be out cold until tomorrow afternoon, but you don't have to stay over tonight."

Her smile was small and secretive in the dim light of the apartment. She gave no reply, and instead took another sip of her drink. 

"Naminé," he said slowly as he took in her smile. "What's going to happen?"

"You should speak to Sora and Kairi tonight before you drop them off at their places. Make sure they stay awake long enough to do that, okay?"

He was going to ask for more information, since it was clear now that Naminé knew something about what those two were planning that he didn't know, but his inquiry was interrupted by Ven climbing on the table that held the non-alcoholic beverages and the alcoholic punch. He thrust his glass bottle of whatever fruity drink he had up into the air, and then declared in a steady tone of voice that belied how drunk he had to be:

"I want someone to take my virginity _right now!_ "

And he had to be drunk, because if climbing on top of a table wasn't enough proof, the declaration most certainly was. Instantly, every conscious pair of eyes snapped to focus on Ven, who was wobbling on the table with a grim, determined look on his face. Riku watched Roxas drop the ribbon he was holding, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, and then turned away as he stood up and marched over to the table where his twin was beginning to teeter off of.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING," Roxas screeched, and Ven fell backwards off the table, knocking over three bottles of soda and sloshing the majority of the death punch out of the bowl. "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? YOU'RE DRUNK."

No one, Riku noticed, was brave enough to point out that Roxas didn't look all too sober either, especially since Xion seemed to have clipped some ribbons into his hair.

"You don't understand," Ven yelled from somewhere on the floor. "Sora's gotten laid! Terra is getting laid in the bathroom _right now_! I refuse to be the only non-asexual virgin in this group!"

As one, every conscious person in the room whipped their heads around to stare at the bathroom door. There was a moment of silence, and then, over the music, a faint moan could be heard.

"HOLY SHIT," someone yelled. It was Axel. Xion clambered off the couch and clutched her collection of hair accessories tightly to her chest as she tried to crawl away before Axel noticed his makeover. "CONGRATS ON THE SEX."

It was then that Naminé reached up and patted his shoulder comfortingly, and Riku realized that he lost the ability to speak or move sometime within the past two minutes.

"Augurk," he managed to get out once he got past the realization that his mentor and once childhood hero was now doing the nasty with someone in his bathroom.

"It's okay," Naminé said, although it didn't sound like she believed what she was saying. Riku nodded mutely, still too dumbstruck to realize he could move again.

The spectacle had, meanwhile, continued on, oblivious to Riku's distress. When he managed to tune back in to what was going on, Axel and Ven were yelling at each other across the room about who Terra was having sex with (Aqua, which made Kairi shriek, which made Sora fall on his face, which made Kairi go down with him when he grabbed onto her arm for balance). Ven looked oddly proud of this bit of news, which Riku didn't want to think too deeply about, because if he was Ven and he caught those two having sex in the bathroom, he would've run out of the apartment screaming and begging strangers in the street for bleach to wash his eyes out.

"WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH YOU LOSING YOUR VIRGINITY," Roxas said, still too drunk to have mastered the secrets to volume control. Xion sidled up next to him and immediately began to stick hair ornaments into his spikes. Roxas either didn't notice or was too distracted to care.

"I told you! I don't want to be the only—"

"NO. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO JUST GET KNOCKED UP—"

"Knocked up?! I can't get knocked up! Besides, I'm the older one and—"

"NO."

"I NEVER COCKBLOCKED YOU WHEN YOU—"

It was then that the bathroom door slammed open and Aqua ran out, hair in disarray, blouse halfway buttoned, and one thigh-high stocking bunched at her ankles. She cartwheeled— _cartwheeled!_ —over the refreshment table, clamped a hand over Ven's mouth, and then threw him over her shoulder. 

"Excuse me," she said as she ran towards the door, carrying a struggling Ven as Roxas sputtered behind her, "we need to have a talk about the meaning of discretion."

In the ensuing chaos that followed, Naminé had slipped away to calm down Roxas, and Xion had slipped away from him to go up to Riku. She was carrying her hair accessories with her, smiling a smile way too bright and way too large for him to feel safe. Her eyes also darted around, getting close to his face but never quite meeting it, and the overall effect was deeply unsettling.

"Riku," she said, approaching him with unsteady steps, "did I ever tell you that you have really pretty hair?"

He tried to come up with a way to dissuade her from choosing him as her third victim of the night that didn't include screaming and running away when Sora arrived to save him.

"Riiiiikuuuuuu," he whined, Kairi draped over his back and shuffling slowly behind him, "this party isn't fun anymore. Can you give us a ride?"

"Yes," Riku blurted out without thinking anything other than, 'Oh, god, I don't want to be a pretty princess while still sober.' That was also not his very bad idea, although it was certainly a step towards it. "Are you two both ready?"

"Yes," Kairi muttered into the back of Sora's shirt, and Xion pouted before scanning over the rest of the people at the party.

"Good," Riku said. "Let's get going."

Getting the two of them back turned out to be an ordeal, mainly because getting them into Riku's car in the first place was far harder than it had to be. Sora wanted to sit in the passenger's seat. Kairi wanted to sit with Sora. Riku refused to let her sit in Sora's lap. Neither of them wanted to sit in the backseat. Riku just wanted them to get in and shut up.

In the end, he managed to convince Sora to go sit in the back alone and Kairi to sit up in the front. She passed out as soon as he managed to buckle her in, and once he made sure that Sora also was strapped down—not so much for his safety as for Riku's own, since a drunk Sora was an active Sora—finally started his car and pulled out of the parking lot.

Then, as he waited for the streets to clear so that he could turn out into it, he realized that Naminé would be staying over at the apartment he shared with Axel, which meant that Kairi would have it to herself, which may or may not have had anything to do with the secret thing that Naminé was hinting at him earlier that night. He decided to just assume she was drunk all along and trying to signal to him that Sora and Kairi were meant to be dropped off together at her place.

"Hey," he asked the back seat, "am I dropping both of you off at Kairi's?"

Sora smiled and bounced in his seat. "Kairi's or my place! I don't think Roxas or Ven will be coming home tonight. In fact, Ven might be dead cause Aqua killed him."

It showed just how drunk Sora was that he said that with a smile. Riku shook his head and turned onto traffic. "All right. Kairi's it is."

Kairi snapped awake for a second, said, "Huh?" and then fell back asleep again. Riku heard Sora sigh dreamily and, not for the first time that night, cursed himself and his decision to be the designated driver at a party hosted in his own apartment.

That, by the way, was also not the very bad idea.

What was the very bad idea was when he pulled into the parking space right in front of the modest two-bedroom apartment belonging to Kairi and Naminé, Kairi woke up, looked at Riku with a gaze so intense that it made him uncomfortable, and then said, "I don't feel well. Could you carry me into my room?"

Riku looked back, but Sora also had the exact same gaze. The smart thing to do would have been to kick them both out and drive away, but Riku was tired and they were his closest friends, so he agreed.

That was the bad idea. Agreeing. Because agreeing once led to agreeing again when Sora asked him to help out of his complicated belted hoodie. Agreeing to that led to agreeing to help Kairi figure out how to unlace her boots, which lead to agreeing to help Sora not kill himself by banging his head against the sink to brush his teeth, which lead to agreeing to help Kairi massage her legs because they were hurting, which lead to agreeing to let Sora take off Riku's jacket, which lead to...well.

Riku waking up naked in Kairi's bed with Sora and Kairi sprawled all over him. 

Bad idea.

His first feeling upon waking up was panic, because he had known Sora and Kairi all their lives and could tell without even having to open his eyes that they were on top of him. His second feeling was also panic, because he when he did open his eyes, the first thing he saw was Kairi's breasts. His third feeling was panic as well, because he realized that he had taken advantage of them. Or them of him. Either way, alcohol was involved, and that never ended well. His fourth feeling was that of his heart rate increasing and his airways tightening because he was having the fucking panic attack of his life while naked in bed with his two best friends and he could see Kairi's breasts and they were fucking fantastic and Sora had a terrible case of morning wood and he was going to die from asphyxiation because he _couldn't breathe_ —

And then Sora woke up and it was horrible because even though Riku was having a panic attack and was about to die, he still couldn't help but to be captivated by just how blue Sora's eyes were and just how much he'd wanted but suppressed the want for years to wake up to the two of them and—

"Ghhk," he said because he still couldn't breathe. Sora peered at him in confusion, eyes slowly widening as he returned fully to waking.

"OH MY GOD," Sora screamed, jolting up and immediately wincing and sinking back down into the bed because, okay, Riku hadn't been as gentle as he could have been last night and—

Breathing. Breathing was still not happening.

Sora, however, seemed completely unaware of his plight. Either that, or he was ridiculously happy to see Riku suffocate, because he had the biggest fucking smile Riku had seen on his face in years, which was rather unfair, really, because he should have been hung over and in pain and hating the world.

"I did it! We did it! Kairi, look! We slept with Riku!"

And if Riku didn't have problems breathing before, he sure did now. He wanted to make a declaration of "WHAT?" or something equivalent to it, but he still couldn't get air to flow in and out of his lungs. 

So he watched in horror instead, gasping silently for breath, as Sora reached over to shake Kairi's shoulder until she woke up, bleary eyed, and peered at the both of them in confusion.

"OH MY GOD," she echoed as Riku felt the last vestiges of his life fade away. "We slept with Riku! Sora, we slept with Riku!"

There was no reason that the two of them should have ever sounded so excited about that. Kairi got up, still naked, and Riku tried very hard not to look at or think about her breasts when she moved, but then he had them shoved against his chest when she tried to fall back onto the bed but fell on him instead.

"Oh, god," she moaned as Sora peered at her with worry. "I'm going to throw up."

"Don't throw up on me," Riku wanted to say, but breathing still wasn't happening. Sora's eyes grew wide with concern as he tried to push himself up again, gently this time.

"Do you need help getting to the bathroom? Here, Kairi, I'll help you. Sorry, Riku, we'll be right back!"

Then the two of them were gone, heading inside the bathroom as Riku began to die.

Except he didn't die. He didn't die even when he heard Kairi wretch miserably into the toilet. He didn't die when Sora came back, still naked and with semi-erect boner. He didn't die when Sora finally, _finally_ noticed that he wasn't breathing properly and was in fact having a panic attack. He didn't die when Kairi wandered in when Sora yelled, looking half-dead and with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.

He wanted to die when the two of them held him and muttered encouraging things to him and rubbed his back and told them that everything was okay, but that was more from shame and embarrassment than a lack of oxygen.

"Aguh," he said eloquently when he could breathe again. Kairi and Sora were still both rubbing his back encouragingly, and it helped, it really did, but they were also still naked, which is why the next breath of air he took in went into saying:

"Could you guys please put on some clothes?"

They glanced at him, looked at their naked bodies, and shrugged before climbing off the bed and rummaging around for something to wear. For Kairi and Sora it wasn't a big issue, since Kairi lived there and Sora kept some of his clothes with her anyway. For Riku, though, getting dressed was more of a challenge, because while his outer layers weren't too bad, his didn't feel like wearing his dirty underwear. Sora solved this by handing him a pair of his own, and when Riku made a complaint about not wanting to wear Sora's underwear, clean or not, Sora gave him a look that said, "You had your dick in my butt. You can't complain."

Riku figured that not complaining and putting them on was a better alternative than having another panic attack.

Eventually they made their way into the kitchen, all three of them, with Sora far too cheerful for someone who should have by all rights been hung over, Kairi still looking like death by hangover was a feasible option, and Riku trying very, very hard to keep himself under control so he didn't jump into his car and leave.

"Coffee?" Sora asked, and Kairi kissed him. Riku shuffled around the kitchen and tried not to look too awkward.

He had a mug of coffee shoved into his hands and was made to sit down at the table, where Kairi and Sora were inhaling their caffeine as if it was the only sustenance they had consumed in weeks. 

"So," Riku began, but then fell silent as he realized that he didn't know how to start the talk that they all desperately needed to have. 

"So," Kairi repeated, but she fell silent as well. The two of them turned to Sora, who was licking his milky coffee mustache off his top lip.

"So," he said, still chipper, but then his face fell and he made an annoyed look. "I don't remember!"

"Huh?" Kairi asked, and Sora slammed his mug down and pouted.

"I'm pretty sure we had sex last night," here, Riku choked on his coffee, "but I just realized I can't remember it."

"How could you not?" Kairi asked as Riku tried to convince his coffee to go down the correct pipe. "It was _fantastic_!"

The coffee decided to try and come out from his nose. 

"Don't tell me that," Sora whined as Riku grabbed for a paper towel. "I feel bad enough as it is for not remembering, you don't have to tell me that it was fantastic on top of it."

"Guys," Riku sputtered out when it felt like his nostrils weren't burning, "I think you two are missing the point."

They peered at him curiously. Riku took a deep breath, reminded himself that oxygen was precious, and went on.

"I mean, I think we all made a pretty big mistake last night."

From the way their faces fell, he got the feeling that his biggest mistake was saying that.

"You," Kairi began, but then she paused and said, softly, "You didn't...enjoy it?"

He enjoyed it all right, but that wasn't the point. "You two were drunk. I took advantage of you both."

"Not true! Kairi and I have been thinking about it for years!"

Breathing was difficult again. _"Years?!"_

Kairi had a look of concern on her face. "I... We did talk to you about it last night, right?"

Any talking that had happened between the three of mostly consisted of moans of "More," and, "Faster," and each other's names.

"Oh my god," Kairi said when he didn't reply. "Riku, I'm so, so sorry. You must have thought—must still think—"

"What," he said, and he was very proud of the way his voice didn't shake, "did you mean by years."

Sora had a stricken look on his face, one that Kairi matched as they exchanged looks.

"I," Kairi began, "We... That is, we both have been thinking about this for a long time. You're important to us—just as important to us as we are to each other, and even back when we were kids we were a trio. When you left for college, Sora and I were both so lonely and impatient to get there because it felt like a part of us was missing, and—"

"I love you," Sora blurted out, staring at Riku with a look eerily reminiscent of the one he had in the car last night. "Kairi loves you. We both love you."

This was too much for him, and he didn't even drink last night. 

"You're a part of us," Kairi continued. "You're a part of us, and we'd like to be a part of you as well."

"So last night," he said, and it wasn't as easy this time to keep his voice steady, "that was...what? Pity?"

"No!" Kairi yelled, and she actually stood up and slammed her hands on the table. "Never! Riku, we love you! When people kept encouraging Sora and me to start dating, I hated myself so much because I loved you as well. I thought I was selfish, that I was greedy, but then Sora confessed that he loved you and we— We—"

"We're a trio," Sora said. "The three of us. It's always been the three of us. Riku, I know I seem oblivious, but I've known you forever and I know. I know that you love us too."

"We don't want you to feel like you're alone. You're not alone in feeling this way. We planned to tell you before we ever did something like that, but... You're right. We made a mistake in not telling you, and I can't apologize enough for that."

It was too much.

"Riku," Kairi said softly. She reached for his hands and he was too shocked and numb to do anything when she grabbed one and closed her fingers around his. On his other side, Sora did the same thing, and Riku watched them both hold his hands.

It was too much.

"I need to think," he blurted out, and he leapt up, yanked his hands back, and bolted.

\---

When he made it back to his apartment, mind still swimming around in the deluge of information he just received, it took him a moment to realize that the place still looked like a Category Three hurricane had swept through it.

"Welcome back," Naminé said, carrying a trash bag in one hand as she tossed garbage into it. 

"...Hi," Riku replied. "Are you the only one here?"

"Xion's making a call in the kitchen, Roxas is out looking for Ven to make sure he's still alive, and Axel is..." She trailed off and shrugged. 

Riku sighed and kicked his shoes off. "He's the one who lives here. He should be the one cleaning up instead of you."

"It's okay. I don't mind. That's why I stayed over."

He shook his head and tried to clear out some of the fog in his brain before grabbing a plate of half-eaten pizza. "Let me help."

Cleaning up was good. It kept his mind off things and made him feel productive. When Xion wandered in, looking only half-conscious, he was able to guide her to the couch and hand her a cup of water, which was more than he could have done an hour earlier. Between him, Naminé, and Xion once she recovered from her hangover, the three of them actually managed to get a fair amount cleaned up before Roxas and Ven ran into the apartment, identical expressions of fear plastered all over their faces.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," Roxas muttered as Ven—who looked remarkably good for a dead man—ran up to Riku and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Where's Axel?" he asked, and Riku shrugged.

"He's going to die," Roxas said, and Ven let go of Riku to stare at his twin.

"We have to hide him."

"We can smuggle him out of the country."

"How? He's too tall to fit into luggage!"

"You underestimate how flexible he can be. We can do it. Let's grab him and stuff him into—"

"Excuse me," Riku interrupted, feeling like he should at least speak up for his roommate, "but why are you two trying to smuggle him out of the country?"

Roxas and Ven looked at him with apprehensive faces. "Terra's coming," they said at the same time.

"Uh...and?"

"He's going to kill Axel."

"Why?"

The two looked at each other again, but before either one of them or both of them could speak, someone knocked on the door. The two froze, tensed up, and then dive-rolled into the hallway.

The knocking continued. 

"Should I get that?" Xion asked at last. Riku sighed and went to open the door himself, wondering what Axel had done and whether or not he wanted to help him when he found out, or if he should just let Terra kill him.

"Hello," Terra said, voice clipped and a strained smile on his face. "May I speak to Lea?"

There were only two types of people who still called Axel by his legal name. The first were those who didn't actually know him. The second were those who wanted to kill him. Judging by what had happened earlier and the still way Terra was obviously restraining himself, Riku would have assumed the latter rather than the former even if he didn't know Terra.

"Can I ask you why you want to kill my roommate?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe and giving no indication of whether or not he was actually going to let Terra in. He could feel Naminé and Xion scuttle around behind him, pretending to clean up while actually trying to listen.

To his surprise, Terra went red and stood ramrod straight. "No."

"I kind of need to know before I decide if I should let you in and become an accomplice to murder."

Terra went even redder and looked down at the ground before mumbling something incomprehensible. For a moment, Riku felt the universe turn upside down as he realized that, for the first time since he had known Terra, he was in a position of authority.

"Sorry, didn't catch that."

"He sent me a cake," Terra said quietly. Riku stared at him.

"And that's...bad?"

"He had a custom message on it."

"Ah." That explained a lot, and while Riku was curious as to what the cake said, he also knew Axel well enough to have a general idea as to how bad the words could have been.

"He also sent one to Aqua."

"Okay," Riku said and stepped aside, causing Naminé and Xion to scatter in different directions. "Just to be clear, you're going to make his death quick and painless, right?"

Terra gestured at himself. "I came here instead of waiting for Aqua to get to him first."

"Thanks," Riku said, and then let him in. "By the way, Ven and Roxas are trying to smuggle him out the country."

"Don't worry, I can get Ven to cough him up. You'll have to help me with Roxas, though."

Riku shrugged as he saw Xion's head peek out from behind the sofa. "I'll think of something."

'Something' turned out to be hoisting Roxas up into the air by the armpits as he hissed and kicked and scratched and spat profanity out at Riku. Terra, on the other hand, only had to cross his arms, look upset, and say "Ventus," in a no-nonsense tone of voice before Ven wilted and opened the door to Axel's room.

"Traitor," Roxas hissed, and Ven actually looked guilty as Terra stormed in with a dark expression on his face.

Unfortunately for him, Axel's room was devoid of Axel.

"Ha," Roxas cried triumphantly as he stabbed his elbows into the middle of Riku's forearms, causing Riku to wince and drop him. "He got away!"

As soon as those words left his mouth, the sounds of someone throwing up in the bathroom echoed down the hallway. Ven sighed and leaned against the wall.

"I don't think he got away," he muttered as Roxas's face fell and Terra marched over to the bathroom.

"Lea," Terra said as he pushed open the door, "we need to talk."

"URWARRG," Axel replied into the toilet, ribbons framing his face in a manner that would be have been pretty if it weren't for the situation and how utterly horrible he looked overall. Terra made a face.

"On second thought, you can take a moment to finish up."

"Thanks," Axel rasped before spitting into the toilet.

"Actually, no, this can't wait. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that it was a pretty funny idea. By the way, those cakes weren't cheap."

"Not the point," Terra yelled, and Axel winced and spat into the toilet again. "Look, it's not— I mean, it wasn't what everyone thought, and the two of us already have enough to discuss without you making it worse!"

"So you didn't get laid after all?"

Terra let out a sound of frustration, and Riku walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I think," Riku said as Axel dry-heaved into the toilet, "that the time for words is over. You should just put him out of his misery."

Axel flipped him off as he pulled out a handful of hairclips and threw them into the bathtub. "Thanks for sticking up for me, _roomie_."

"You deserve whatever you get," Riku muttered, and Terra rubbed his forehead.

"Lea," he said, pointing at Axel, and that was as far as he got before they were interrupted.

"Lea?" They heard Aqua call from the door. "I know you're here."

Axel went pale. Terra dropped his hand and looked back towards the door in panic. Riku let go of Terra and backed up against the opposite wall, where Ven and Roxas were trying their best to make themselves as small and inconspicuous as possible.

"Oh, fuck," Axel whispered as the sound of resolute footsteps came down the hall.

"Lea," Aqua began, a portrait of calm fury etched on her face, "did you think that what you did was in good taste—Oh. Terra. Good morning."

His mentor, Riku noticed, appeared to have stopped breathing.

"Urgk," Terra said.

'Oh,' Riku thought. 'That's where I get it.'

"Yes," Aqua replied, and if she looked flustered and embarrassed, no one pointed it out because they were all too frightened of dying. "Lea, let's go for walk."

"I," Axel began, and if he were a smart man, Riku thought, then he would agree and hope for a quick death. "I think I can't. I broke my legs."

Axel was an idiot. Aqua glanced at his legs, glanced at the nest of accessories in his hair, and then looked him right in the eyes.

"Nice try. Let's go for a walk."

With that, she grabbed one of his arms and hoisted him up, dragging him down the hall and out the door. As soon as she left, the guys remaining in the hallway all let out breaths of relief, and Xion and Naminé slowly crept out of the kitchen they were taking shelter in.

"I almost feel bad for him," Terra said, and after a lengthy pause that Riku took to be a moment of silence for their fallen comrade, Terra adjusted his jacket and went to the door. "I'm going to check on them."

"I think I need a new roommate," Riku said once he left. Roxas sighed and muttered something about idiots.

"Did this mean," Ven said, and Riku was distressed to find that he looked like his goldfish drowned, "that they _didn't_ have sex with each other?"

"Don't even get on that train of thought." Roxas grabbed his twin's arm and led him towards the door. "Come on. I feel like binge eating ice cream until we throw up."

"Oh, no, you don't," Xion suddenly declared, and then she and Naminé descended upon the two of them in a flurry of trash bags and cleaning wipes. "You're helping us clean first."

"We don't even live here!"

"Neither do we," Naminé pointed out before shoving a garbage bag into Roxas's hands. "But we can't leave Riku to clean up Axel's mess by himself."

Riku shook his head as he was snapped out of his despairing thoughts on how he'd be able to find a new roommate in the middle of the semester. "Huh? Oh, right. Cleaning."

Roxas gave him the stink eye. 

With Ven and Roxas's help, the apartment returned to looking decently presentable within a few hours. Riku was tossing the last two bags of trash out while the others lounged around in the living room when Sora's minivan pulled into the parking lot. All of a sudden, the things that Riku had been pushing out of his mind since he got home came back, and he felt a moment of panic settle in as Sora got out of his vehicle, caught Riku's eye, and then flushed and looked down again.

"Um," Sora said awkwardly as Riku tried his hardest to not pull a Terra, "hey. Are Rox and Ven still here?

Riku nodded. Sora put his hands on the back of head and fidgeted for a while before opening his mouth and unleashing the floodgates.

"I'm really sorry about what happened. Kairi's really sorry about what happened. That was the worst way that could have possibly gone, because we weren't planning on having sex with you until we had everything settled—oh, not that we didn't want to have sex with you, because we did. A lot. A whole lot. And last night was amazing, even if I didn't remember it, but we shouldn't have done it because now you probably think we're just using you for the sex, which we're not, because we love you, and Kairi told me that I probably shouldn't be saying that too much because—"

Riku held up one hand. Sora snapped his mouth shut.

"They're inside," he managed to get out after a series of false starts. "I'm sure they'll be happy to go home after cleaning all morning.

"Oh, okay," Sora said, deflating right in front of Riku's eyes. "I'll go get them."

Riku hid himself on the other side of the building until he saw Sora's minivan pull out of the parking lot and onto the main streets. It was only then that he finally went back inside.

Naminé was sitting on the couch, clutching a mug full of something steaming in her hands. On the coffee table, set upon a coaster, was another mug.

"I made us some hot chocolate," she said gently as Riku dragged himself inside. 

He briefly debated on whether or not he should ignore her and therefore avoid the conversation he knew she wanted to have with him, or if he should stop avoiding the subject and get it over with. Naminé ended up making the decision for him, however, when she got up and touched his arm.

"You're just going to be more miserable alone." She smiled at him when he turned to look at her. "We both know it."

It wasn't a taunt or condemnation, but rather a simple statement of facts—one meant to encourage him. At the moment, Riku wanted neither encouragement nor support, so Naminé's gentle voice and straightforward words irked him far more than he logically knew they should have. 

It took a lot of control and a lot of time before Riku went to the couch, but Naminé was patient, and she waited without judgment the entire time.

"You knew," he stated once they were both seated. Naminé nodded and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

"I don't think I was meant to know, but Kairi needed advice. I wasn't," she admitted, looking down at her hot chocolate, "surprised when I heard. I knew for a long time that the two of them love you."

He said nothing and opted to glare at his untouched mug.

"Riku," Naminé said after a moment's pause, shaking her head, "you didn't do anything wrong. You're not the villain here."

"I know that," he countered, and she must not have been expecting that, because she turned to look at him, head tilted slightly in confusion.

"Then what...?"

"I'm _angry_. Angry at those two for just doing whatever they wanted without thinking, angry at myself for letting them, angry at all of us for...for..."

He groaned and rested his elbows on his thighs as he slumped forward and covered his face with his hands.

"I had a threesome with my best friends who were too drunk to be in their right minds, and in the morning they told me they love me even though Sora was too drunk to remember anything and Kairi was too sick to get dressed without throwing up. How am I supposed to react to this? Am I supposed to just say, 'Oh, yeah, I spent years of my life repressing my feelings and torturing myself for you two, but now that we've had drunk sex, let's just throw ourselves headlong into a three-way relationship because _clearly_ confessing your love to me solves all problems, and nothing could go wrong with that idea.'? Does it seem okay to you? Look at me, Naminé," he cried, throwing his hands up, "Do I look okay?"

Naminé didn't look okay. Her mouth was wide open, and her eyes were enormous. Her mug was beginning to slip out of her hands, although she caught it and composed herself in time to prevent it from spilling onto the carpet.

"I," she began, then lifted a hand to cover her mouth. "Didn't they...talk to you last night?"

"No," Riku muttered as he covered his face again. 

"I see." She set her mug down on the coffee table and stood up. "I'm sorry," she said as she grabbed her purse. "I have to go. Not that," she said quickly as Riku peered at her through his fingers, "I want to leave you alone without support, but I have to yell at some people first."

"That's fine," he mumbled as she threw on her jacket and slipped on her shoes. "I wanted to be alone anyway."

She paused in front of the door and turned to face him. "Riku, I know less than I thought I did, but know that Kairi and Sora were both planning on talking and explaining things to you last night. I don't think either of them were planning to get that drunk, and I know it doesn't excuse things for anyone, but... They're not trying to use you, and they're not taking it lightly.."

"I know. That's why I have a problem with it."

She inhaled sharply and nodded. "I see. Take care, okay?"

He waved her out impatiently.

\---

Axel came back sometime late in the afternoon. Riku knew this because he was jolted awake when Axel barged into his room and immediately sat on him.

"Go away," Riku said into his pillow. "I'm napping."

"More like you're brooding," Axel countered, digging his pointy, bony elbows into Riku's back so hard that it hurt. "Whatever it is you're being emo about, it can't be worse than what I'm going through."

"Go away."

"No. Do you know how many ways a man's testicles can be permanently damaged? I do."

"I don't want to hear about your junk." Riku raised a hand and attempted to backhand Axel off, but the latter elbowed him in the kidneys.

"I also know that eight year olds are fully capable of causing pretty much all of the injuries required to permanently damage a pair of otherwise healthy testicles. You'd think with how small their fists are that they wouldn't do a lot of damage, but nooooo."

Riku breathed in deeply, tensed, and then rolled over and out of the bed. Axel yelped in an undignified manner that Riku mentally made a note to make fun of him for later, and the two of them fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and blankets.

"What the hell," Axel yelled—still looking utterly ridiculous because he hadn't managed to get all the hair decorations out of his hair—as Riku shoved him away and stood, taking his blankets with him. "Do you know how bruised I am?"

"You think I care?" Blankets. Blankets were good. Wrapping himself in the blankets so that the world and his obnoxious roommate couldn't get to him was even better. He tugged the sides over his head like a hood and wrapped the corners around him. Axel watched him do this from his position on the floor before laughing.

"You look like a hobo."

"Shut up and get out of my room," Riku muttered. He sat on his bed and stared at the wall in front of him. Maybe, if he stayed silent and still enough, Axel would get the hint and _leave._

It was too much to expect.

"What's your problem?" Axel pushed himself up and went to stand right in front of Riku, leaning down and flipping the blanket off his head. "I thought you'd be puking rainbows and spitting sunshine after your hot threesome last night."

Riku felt his eyes widen, and he involuntarily looked up at Axel before jerking his head down again. "How did you know?!"

"Come on, you left with those two—who were all over you—and didn't come home. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened, especially since the three of you have been obviously fumbling towards this conclusion since day one."

He was not going to have another panic attack. "What do you mean _obviously_?"

Axel shrugged and sauntered over to Riku's desk, where he pulled out the chair and sat in it backwards, draping his long arms over the chair back and resting his head on them. "I mean what I said. I don't think there's anyone who knows the three of you who don't think you're all touching butts. Obvious."

Riku scowled and fell back into his bed, turning so that his back faced him. "Obvious like you, Xion, and Roxas?"

He heard Axel laugh and slap his knee. "That's a good one! Just so you know," he said, and Riku turned his head and caught Axel waving a hand in front of his face, "we've got incompatible sexualities. Shame, isn't it?"

What was a shame was that Riku didn't feel like getting up to punch the smug smirk off Axel's face. 

"So if the three of you did have compatible sexualities, you're saying that you'd be for a threesome?

Axel's smirk grew smugger. 

"Whatever," Riku muttered before turning back to the wall. He heard Axel sigh and the sound of the chair squeaking as it spun.

"All I'm saying is that you three are a unit. Honestly? I was shocked when Sora and Kairi started dating, because I assumed that the three of you were together already." Another sigh, this time three times more melodramatic, and the chair squeaked again. "Shattered my entire worldview when I found out it wasn't so."

Riku scowled and pulled the blankets over his head. 

"And now," Axel continued, "you're shattering my worldview again. You three finally resolve the sexual tension that's been floating around you for years, and now I discover that ended tragically. The trio's been ruined! Split up forever! Oh, what will you do?"

Axel spoke with exaggerated dramatics, and despite the fact that he was still facing the wall, Riku could easily see him waving his hands around, tipping the chair forward until it threatened to fall over. Yet these things did nothing to help dispel the feeling of anxiety from bubbling over as Riku thought about the events of the past day and how they would affect their relationship. He already ran away from the both of them, and then ran and hid from Sora. Things changed; that was inevitable. The question was _how_ things changed.

If things changed in a way that meant the three of them would no longer be the three of _them_ anymore…

"Hey, Riku, I was joking." Riku felt the bed dip as Axel sat on the edge. "Things didn't go that badly, right?"

Riku didn't answer because he didn't know the answer himself.

"Oh, boy," Axel muttered, and the bed sprung up slightly as he got off the bed and began to pace. "How badly did it go?"

"Bad."

"Bad like, 'I gotta fake my death, move out of the country, change my name, and live as goat herder' bad, or bad like, 'I'm going to crawl under the covers and hide from the world for a week before emerging from my cave of pity and binge eating ice cream until I puke?'"

"You've been spending way too much time with Roxas."

"No such thing. Now answer."

Riku wriggled around in his blanket cocoon as he thought. "More of the latter than the former."

"Oh, good," Axel said with relief. "I was worried that I'd have to help smuggle you out of the country or something."

"Definitely spending way too much time with Roxas."

"I told you, no such thing." He heard Axel walk towards the bed, and that was all the warning Riku got before Axel flopped on top of him, knocking the breath out of him.

"Get off," Riku yelled again, turning over and immediately getting a sparkly purple butterfly barrette shoved in his face. "And take those stupid things out of your hair. You look ridiculous."

"Oh, damn," Axel said nonchalantly, "I thought I got rid of all those. Be a pal and take that out, won't you?"

"Do it yourself. I'm not your personal hair monkey."

"Then you'll have to put up with it," Axel said, cheerfully rubbing his hair and the butterfly into Riku's face. "Now are you going to actually tell me what happened, or am I going to turn over and show you the panda clip as well?"

Riku managed to get his arms out of the blanket cocoon and shoved at Axel's head. "I don't feel like talking about it."

"It's not good to keep things to yourself. I'm doing you a favor, roomie."

"No, you're not," Riku spat out, grabbing the butterfly barrette and a fistful of Axel's hair and then _pulling_. Axel yelped, and his hands were soon on Riku's trying to pry them off his hair.

"Oh, yeah, hair puling," Axel said in between grunting in pain. "Very manly, Riku. Very mature way to handle your problems."

Axel was an idiot. With his free hand, Riku groped around his gigantic nest of hair until he found the panda clip, then grabbed the fistful of hair around that as well and pulled.

"Uncle! Uncle uncle uncleuncleuncle!"

Riku let go, and Axel vaulted off the bed and stood a fair distance away, both hands in his hair and a pained expression on his face.

"Jesus, what is with people and beating me up today?"

"Are you going to drop it?" Riku grumped, shoving his arms back into his blankets and curling up again. He heard Axel snort.

"Not a chance. This just means that I'll have to poke you from afar. Now come on, spill it. Talking about it will make you feel better."

"No, it won't. I already talked to Naminé about it, and I sure don't feel better having done it."

"Yeah, well, Naminé's not me. I give good advice."

Riku couldn't hold back his bark of laughter. "Please. You just like hearing yourself talk."

"Guilty as charged. Now," Axel said, wheeling the chair over so that it sat farther away from Riku, "are you going to spill or not?"

His gut instinct was to say no, because it was exhausting to think about, exhausting to deal with, spilling his guts out to Naminé had only made him feel more depressed, and doing it all over again wasn't something he wanted to experience. At the same time, the anger he felt still hadn't subsided, and while releasing it on Axel was a nice change of pace, it wasn't enough. The anger was beginning to bleed away for vindication, and childish as he knew it was, Riku wanted someone else to agree with him.

So he spilled. He told Axel about how he had driven the two of them home, about how he had carried Kairi inside. About how they kept requesting him to help them with things, and one thing led to another and then he was taking off Kairi's pants and Sora was peeling off his shirt.

"Woah, whoa, whoa," Axel said, waving his hands as signal for Riku to stop. "Let me get this straight. Kairi asked you to take off her pants so that you could _massage her legs_ , and you agreed?"

Riku bristled. "Yes."

"And despite being the only sober person in the room, you saw nothing weird about that at all? What, you rub her naked legs often?"

"No, but—"

"And when Sora started taking off your clothes. You didn't think to stop him? Or does he strip you on a regular basis in a friendly, no-homo sort of way?"

"Axel."

"'Cause what I'm seeing here is that you—being the only sober one there that night and therefore the only capable of consenting to anything—never once stopped to tell them to stop and just rolled with the punches instead, knowing full well that they were too drunk to think rationally."

"They cheered and celebrated when they woke up in bed with me! If they weren't sore and hung over, they probably would have done a celebration dance!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about you. Come on. Who are you really upset at?"

Sometime in the past twenty-four hours, Riku realized, the world had gone mad. In a sane world, Axel was not allowed to be insightful to the point of being painful to listen to, especially because of how right he was.

"Oh, god," he muttered, curling up as tightly as he could as his stomach flipped upside down from nausea. "Oh, god."

"Hey, hey, hey," Axel said, coming over to sit on the bed again, "look, I know this is a kind of fucked up—" Riku let out a short, hysterical laugh, "—but before you decide to condemn yourself, why don't you try talking to at least one of them first?"

"I," he began to say, but then realized that if he kept his mouth open any longer, he was going to vomit. So he closed his mouth instead and tried to swallow, to keep his own disgust at bay, and shook his head instead. He heard Axel sigh, and then there were hands gently rolling him over and pulling him into a sitting position, albeit one that allowed him to slump forward with his face angled down.

"Okay, before you have a panic attack or spontaneously combust or whatever it is you do when you're a nervous wreck—which is starting to freak me out a little—please remember that it's fucking impossible to find a roommate in the middle of the semester, so try not to die."

"Not helping," Riku gasped, and the brief moment of laughter he allowed himself definitely was seeped in hysteria, but Axel seemed satisfied. 

"Hey, laughing! Laughing's good! Seriously, did you talk to two of them at all before you came back?"

Riku shook his head. "Sora came by to pick up the others. I hid."

Axel's hand, which had been on his back since he was made to sit up, left and went to scratch at Axel's temple. "Uh... Wow."

"I hid on the opposite side of the building."

"Huh."

"And then I waited there until I saw him drive away."

"Okay," Axel muttered as Riku started gasping for breath again. "I need someone better equipped to deal with this than me. Give me ten—no, five!—minutes."

And then he was gone, leaving Riku alone at long last, despite the fact that Riku actually didn't want to be alone for the first time in hours.

"You are the worst roommate," he wheezed out, but no one was there to hear him.

\---

Ten minutes later, Riku had managed to get his breathing back to normal and was contemplating the benefits of curling up back into a burrito on his bed when the door opened.

Axel was there. So was Kairi.

"Guurk," Riku choked. Kairi looked alarmed, but Axel just waved it off.

"I got help," he said, and Riku attempted to stand and punch him in the face. Unfortunately, his legs refused to cooperate with him, so instead of delivering the beat down that Axel clearly deserved, Riku just ended up crashing to the floor. Immediately, Kairi was by his side, helping him up and keeping one hand firmly on his back, even after Riku was sitting on his bed again.

"I hate you, _Lea_ ," he spat out. Axel grinned and closed the door behind him.

The sound of the door clicking shut sounded like the sealing of his fate.

Kairi was still standing, her hand on his back, looking around his room awkwardly. Riku was suddenly reminded of the first time she had ever gone into his room alone. It had been a few weeks after the first panic attack he had ever had in his life. Kairi had been shy and awkward and unsure of where to sit, never mind the fact that they'd spent years alone and together in the past, in movie theaters and parks and the shores of the beach, but somehow going into his room for the first time without Sora was different, and she had laughed so hard and smiled so sweetly when he broke the ice by pointing out how awkward the situation was that Riku thought that, yes, he could have this, they could be good together—

—and then guilt stabbed him in the heart and he brought up Sora, talked about the stupid video games they'd play together, and things got awkward again, but in a very different way.

It was okay to want. It wasn't okay to take.

"How's Sora?" he said, and Kairi shot back as if startled, although her hand never left his back.

"He's... Actually, I haven't spoken to him since he left this morning."

Her voice was slow. Hesitant. It was like history repeating all over again. Soon she'd take her hand off his back and sit in his desk chair, looking everywhere except at him, and then they'd awkwardly do their homework together before she excused herself and left. Except there wasn't any homework they shared anymore, so she'd just leave without even sitting in his chair, and Riku would never see her in his room without Sora by her side ever again.

"Oh," Riku said, and from the way that Kairi sighed, he knew that she was going to go.

Which was why he squeaked in surprised when she sat next to him and hugged him tightly.

"I'm sorry," she said, speaking into the blankets around him as she pressed her face against him. "I know I don't have any right to apologize, but I am so, so sorry. I...won't ask how I can make it up to you because I know that there's no way I could, but if there's anything, Riku, anything I could do, even if it's leaving you alone..."

He was startled by her words, but he was even more startled by her tears. His brain, frankly, didn't know what to make of things anymore. The anger he had felt earlier had been long gone, replaced by shame, and hearing her apologize and cry twisted the knife of guilt that had been steadily burying itself in him even more.

"Why— Why are you apologizing? Hey, Kairi..." He pulled his arms out of the blankets and, after a moment's consideration, dropped them entirely, carefully unwrapping himself while keeping Kairi as close to him as possible. With those out of the way, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as she sobbed into his shoulder. "Kairi, it wasn't your fault—"

"We took advantage of you," she sobbed, and Riku winced.

"No. I was the sober one there. I took advantage of the two of you."

Kairi shook her head viciously, her hair tickling his throat as it whipped about. "No. It was us. We were the ones who seduced you—"

"Trust me, you didn't have to do much to accomplish that."

"—and then made you do something you didn't want to do."

"I, uh, actually did want to do it. That's why I did it in the first place."

Kairi sniffed once and then hit Riku's shoulder. Hard. "Stop disagreeing with me!"

"I'm not disagreeing!" His shoulder stung when he let go of her to raise his arms up, hands open and palms out. "I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions!"

"I'm trying to do the same thing!" She looked up, eyes swollen and red and face damp with tears. "Riku, we did something unforgivable to you, and you're sitting here and saying that it was your fault."

"That's because it is!"

"It isn't!" She sighed and buried her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder. "This is really messed up."

"I won't disagree with you there," he muttered, cautiously wrapping his arms around her again. 

There was a period of silence. After a few minutes, Kairi's sniffles slowed down, and he felt some of the tension in her fade away. She became more relaxed, more pliant in his arms, which did nothing to soothe his own nerves because Riku had no idea what he was supposed to do or say.

"You want to know something?" Kairi said at last, and Riku resisted the urge to sigh with relief that it wasn't up to him to break the silence. 

"What?"

"I swore to myself that if I tried, I wasn't going to mess it up." She shifted in his arms, and the pause before she spoke again was just long enough to get awkward. "I talked to Naminé about it. About the plans Sora and I made. We weren't trying to get you to sleep with us. We just wanted to confess. To maybe make something out of the three of us." She nuzzled against his neck, and in a quieter voice, added, "It was scary."

Another pause. And then, slowly, "Because you didn't know how I'd react?" 

She nodded. "But it wasn't just that. I hadn't told anyone how I felt—Well, Sora knew, but he didn't actually know until recently." She took in a shuddering breath, and with a shaking voice said, "I've been in love with you since middle school."

His arms tightened around her involuntarily, and he quickly loosened his grip. "I," he began, but realized immediately after that he didn't have a response to that particular bit of information other than to have his inner mind dance around in a fit of panic and joy, so he closed his mouth and just nodded for her to go on instead.

"It was during my final year. You had moved, and it was just Sora and me. I...had a crush on you for a lot longer than that, but when you left, it felt like something was missing. Sora and I would hang out with our friends, but it still felt like a piece of me was missing something important." She laughed a bit helplessly in his arms, and he tightened them around her again. "Some of the other girls picked up on that. Shortly after the year began, some of them would pick on me, saying that my two boyfriends found out I was cheating on them both, so that's why one of them left." 

It was at this point that Riku pressed her even closer to him and hugged her with all his might. "I didn't know. I'm so sorry, Kairi."

She swatted him on the shoulder again, gently this time. "Don't. It wasn't in any way your fault. Middle schoolers are vicious and childish and stupid. It still hurt, but... It was okay. Tidus, Selphie, Wakka, and Sora would stick up for me, but Selphie would always say things like, 'No, she only likes Sora!' or, 'Kairi doesn't like Riku like that!' and it felt _wrong_. Like it was a lie. That was when I knew. That was when I realized that I loved you."

"But," he tried again, but realized once more that he had absolutely no idea what to say. Cursing his mouth for being three steps faster than his brain, he scrambled around for words and ended up with, "I— Sora— You—" 

It wasn't the most eloquent thing in the world, but Kairi seemed to understand him just fine. 

"I knew I loved Sora too, so that was probably why... God, I hated myself so much. What kind of girl was I to fall for two guys at the same time? Those things the girls had bullied me with were true. I did like you both. I did want you both as my boyfriend, but who did that? What kind of selfish person did that to people? I was worried that the two of you would be hurt if you ever found out, so I swore to myself to never let anyone find out. That was also why Sora and I never dated until we got into college. It was already hard enough that you were gone, but I would have never forgiven myself if I drove the two of you even farther apart."

"I assumed that you were dating," Riku said, and then he mentally swore to himself when he felt Kairi tense up.

"I remember that. You yelled at us when you found out that we weren't."

"I was drunk," he said weakly, and Kairi laughed.

"I remember that, too. I also remember you grabbing us by the back of our heads and smashing our faces together."

"Oh, god," Riku groaned, and he let go of Kairi in order to fall back onto his bed, where he proceeded to cover his face. "I am still so sorry for that."

She laughed again, and then lay down next to him. "It's okay. My lip stopped bleeding pretty quickly."

He groaned again and tried to turn away from her, but she grabbed his wrists and gently pried his hands away from his face, hovering over him so that he was forced to look into her blue, blue eyes.

"Riku, when you did that, I thought that meant that I had no chance of being with you, so that was why I decided to ask out Sora. It seemed like things had been decided for me, so... Why not? Why deny us from getting some happiness? But it still wasn't right."

"Why not?"

She smiled sadly at him and shook her head with a fond, 'You don't get it yet?' expression on her face. "I just had part of my heart broken."

Oh. "Oh."

She eased his hands down to rest on his chest, and then lay down again, snuggling up to him. "Don't get me wrong, I love Sora. I love him and I'm happy with him, but it felt like I was cheating on him by still being in love with you. I wanted to tell him so badly since it wasn't fair to him to date me and not know, but I was beaten to the punch." She laughed. "Do you know what the first thing he said to me was when we went out on our first date?"

"Do I want to know?"

She sat up, cleared her throat, widened her eyes, and then said with a rapid-fire tone of voice that Riku could only assume was meant to imitate Sora's when he was nervous, "'Kairi, I love you, but I can't be with you because I'm also in love with Riku, and it wouldn't be fair to date you because I'd also want to date Riku, and I think I'll just end up pining if I had one of you and not the other, but I don't know if he's interested or not, and this really isn't fair to you because I would totally go out with you and marry you and have kids with you if I weren't also in love with Riku and I sound really creepy right now and oh god Kairi please don't hate me forever.'"

Riku stared blankly at her as she laughed and then smiled smugly at him. "What do you think? Not a bad impression, huh?"

"Aguba," Riku replied. He coughed and tried again. "That wasn't what he actually said, was it?"

"Every word," she answered, and Riku groaned yet again because he could hear it—could see it in his head. "I will never forget that speech for as long as I live. It was pretty funny, but not as funny as his expression when I started laughing right after he made it."

"You're evil," Riku said without thinking, then cursed his mouth for still outrunning his brain, because calling the person of his affections to whom he was having a rather disjointed heart-to-heart with evil was not a step in the right direction.

Thankfully, Kairi had a big heart. Or she was actually evil, because she just grinned at him, smile at contrast to her puffy eyes and tear-stained skin. 

"I know. But it worked out for the best. I told him that I loved you and him as well, and we decided to pine for you together."

The gears in his brain clanked together. "You've been dating for almost three years."

"Yes."

"You've both been _pining_ for me for three years?"

"No, longer. I fell in love with you in middle school, remember?"

"But still! You both were in a relationship with one another, but you were pining for me?"

"We didn't think we had a chance."

"Of course you had a chance! Do you know how much I wanted—"

He shouldn't have said it. First, he hadn't even fully admitted to himself that he wanted the both of them, having always suppressed the thoughts as soon as he became consciously aware of them, knowing all too well about the dangers of wanting too much. Second, the way that Kairi was looking at him as he clamped his traitorous, speeding mouth shut was a source of some cause for concern. He couldn't quite make out if her expression was triumphant, joyful, or full of hopeless despair. It looked like a combination of all three, which didn't seem quite right to him.

Third, saying it meant that there was no way he could deny it any longer, and if he couldn't deny it, then he would eventually accept it and try to obtain it.

That was something he couldn't allow himself to do, especially after what he did to the two of them.

"Stop blaming yourself," Kairi said softly. "I can see you thinking it."

He couldn't really protest that, so he opted to close his eyes instead to avoid looking at her.

"Riku," she said, and then she moved so that she was sitting on him, legs on either side of his torso and hands moving to grip his own. "Riku, talk to me. Talk to us. You don't have to keep things in to guard us from yourself. We want you. We want you to open up to us."

"I," he began, and then licked his lips as he tried to find the words he wanted to say. "I don't know what to say. I don't know how to talk about this. I never— I never wanted to face the two of you about how I felt."

"Why?"

"Because it was too selfish." He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, resting it on the cool sheets. "I've practically been in love with Sora ever since I was six, but he was always so clueless and childish that I figured it would only make things worse if I ever confessed. Then you moved to the islands and it was so obvious that he liked you that I—" He laughed bitterly and tried to pry his hands away from Kairi's, but her grip was firm and unyielding. "I tried so hard to hate you when I realized, but I just couldn't do it. You're a hard person to dislike."

"I'll take that as a compliment," he heard her say, and then he felt her lay down on him, sliding her legs down until she was settled on top of him, their legs tangling with one another's. His hands remained in hers.

"Still, I was so jealous of you for having his attention all the time. I was jealous and torn because I didn't want to be jealous, because I actually liked you. If you'd been even a little bit more unlikable, that would have made my life a lot easier."

"I'm sorry I'm not a bag of dicks," she muttered into his chest, and he allowed himself to laugh.

"How dare you not be a horrible person. But," he said, pausing as Kairi shifted into a more comfortable position on top of him, "it did make it easier for me to realize how I felt about you later on." He opened his eyes, and it took Kairi poking him gently in the side for him to speak again. "Do you remember the storm that hit the island before I left?"

"Ah," Kairi said, and there was an embarrassed chuckle from her before she buried her face against his body. "It's kind of hard to forget that."

Riku tugged at his hands and found that this time Kairi was willing to let them go. Instead of pulling away from her, however, he brought them up to the back of her head and gently stroked her hair. "When Naminé told me that you were at the play island, I had the first panic attack of my life. I think I actually blacked out for a little while."

She was silent for a moment. "But you still came to find me."

"Of course I did. I had to. That night, finding you and making sure you were safe was the most important thing in my life."

She inhaled sharply and enveloped him in a hug, slipping her arms beneath his and gripping his shoulders tightly as she clung to him.

"Was that when?" she asked, voice muffled by his own body, and he nodded and held her close.

"Yeah. That's when I knew. That was also when I knew that Sora loved you too, because he looked exactly the way I felt."

"So that means that was also when you decided to not say anything and just suffer by yourself for years." 

He winced. Kairi pinched his left shoulder and he winced again. "I was going to move. Saying anything would have been stupid." Kairi pinched him again. "I was fourteen!" Another pinch. "Kairi, ow!"

"You are such an idiot," she said, and then lifted her head up to stare straight into his eyes. "But that's okay," she added, expression soft as she smiled tenderly at him. "We're all kind of idiots here."

"Some of us are bigger idiots than others."

"Yeah," she agreed, snuggling close to him. "But we love Sora anyway."

It was a weak joke at best, but Riku laughed anyway. 

They lay together in silence after that. It still wasn't completely comfortable to have her so close. A part of his mind was still very vocally warning him that things wouldn't work out, that things never worked out the way that he hoped they would, and his heart still hurt from something that didn't feel quite right. Compared to the mood whiplashes and panic attacks he'd been suffering since he woke up for the first time that morning, though, discomfort and some heartache felt practically heavenly.

"Hey," he said quietly, and Kairi stirred as if waking from sleep. "What do we do now?"

She traced lazy swirls on his chest. "Talk to Sora. Talk about us. I know where you stand, and you know where I stand, and both of us knows where Sora stands, but I don't know what you want to do."

"I don't know what I want to do either," he admitted, and Kairi was silent and still, fingertips frozen over his heart.

"May I kiss you?" she asked, and Riku swallowed his nervousness.

"Yeah," he answered.

\---

Roxas opened the door with a look that could have dissolved steel.

"Uh," Riku said, and Roxas scowled at him.

"Who is it?" Riku heard Ven ask, and a second later, he joined his twin at glaring at Riku, although when Ven did it, it felt less like acid and more like a thousand pieces of glass stabbing him at particularly tender places.

"I," Riku began as he frantically tried to think of a reason why even the good twin would be pissed off at him. "Can I talk to Sora?"

"Why?" Ven asked.

"So you can break his heart some more?" Roxas hissed.

Riku scrambled around for words when Kairi finally decided to show up and save him from the threat to his life, rolling her eyes and pushing past the two of them as if they weren't currently in the process of into a giant evil dragon that spat acid and destroyed nations.

"Is he sulking? Sora," she yelled into the apartment as Ven and Roxas eyed Riku suspiciously and shuffled apart just enough to let him pass. "Stop moping and put pants on! We're coming up!"

"I do have pants on," Riku heard Sora call out from the second floor, sounding more dejected than he had heard him since he found out that Santa wasn't real. Riku moved into the hallway, and the door slammed closed behind him.

"We're watching you," Ven said, and Riku turned around to find that, indeed, Roxas and Ven were watching him intently, expressions expressing a clearly hostile intent.

"If you break his heart again," Roxas said, "I will cut off your testicles with a pair of kitchen shears."

With that threat to his balls, Riku slowly backed out of the hallway, making sure to keep his eyes on the two of them the entire way, until he tripped over the stairs and then turned to run up them and into Sora's room.

Sora was in what looked to be like a lumpy blanket fort on his bed when Riku entered, Kairi sitting on a mostly smooth corner and doing her best to coax him out. When Riku closed the door behind him, Kairi snapped to look at him, relief washing over her.

She held out her hands for him. "Riku, thank goodness. Help me get Sora to come out."

The figure beneath the massive pile of pillows and blankets had gone stiff when Kairi called out to Riku, and when Riku took Kairi's hands and sat next to her, Sora scrambled away, knocking over a pillar of pillows and causing the blanket fort to collapse on himself. Kairi laughed, and Riku couldn't help but to smile even though he wasn't sure just how bad the situation was yet. Sora wore his heart on his sleeve the majority of the time, but he was also the best at faking a smile out of all the people Riku had ever known in his life. 

"Kairi, stop being mean," Sora whined, and Riku had to dodge a rogue limb that shot out from the mass of bedding. "Riku, tell her to stop being mean!"

Riku did laugh at that. If Sora could whine, then he was fine. Sora made another attempt at flailing his limbs towards their general vicinity, and Riku ended up grabbing a leg as Kairi nearly toppled off the bed in laughter. Sora put up a valiant struggle, and after nearly kicking Riku in the head, decided to be a _dirty cheater_ by throwing off all the blankets and pillows that he had stockpiled above him in one devastating attack over Riku's body. 

"Argh," Riku said, and he went down to the floor, covered in blankets, from a furious flurry of attacks from Sora duel-weilding pillows. He attempted to get himself free from the covers, but Sora sat on him and repeatedly beaned him on the head with the pillows, and Riku could hear Kairi laughing so hard that she began to hiccup.

"That was for hiding from me when I came over, you jerk," Sora said once he stopped his attacks. He then dug around in the bedding until he nearly stuck a finger up Riku's nose and helped dig him out from the blankets. 

Riku looked up and gasped for breath when the bedding was removed, but he nearly stopped breathing when he saw Sora's face hovering above his, not even a single hint of amusement etched on his expression. He was breathing just a bit more heavily than usual from their exertion, and Riku could feel the faint puffs of air on his cheeks. He shivered unconsciously, and Sora's pupil's dilated ever so slightly.

"Hey," he said quietly, "are you okay?"

Riku swallowed. "Yeah."

A pause. "Are...we okay?"

It was then that Kairi slid down from the bed, sitting on a pile of comforters and reaching out for Riku's hand. He squeezed it tightly.

"I think so? We need to talk, but..."

"Yeah," Sora said once Riku trailed off, nodding firmly and then sitting up. Riku bemoaned the loss of having him so close, but then Sora nodded again and visibly swallowed before standing. "Yeah, we do."

A deep breath, then Riku pushed himself off the ground, throwing a few pillows and the bedding off in the process. Kairi let go of his hand just long enough for him to stand up, but as soon as he did, she reached out for him again. Sora stood off a little bit to the side, hands on the back of his head and glancing at where their hands met.

"I, uh," Riku said after a moment's silence, "don't really know where to start. To be honest, I still can't believe that you two... You know."

"That we love you?" Sora chirped, and Riku blushed.

"Yeah. I just don't understand why— Ow!"

Sora and Kairi had both hit him lightly.

"Stop being so hard on yourself," Kairi said as he stared at them in confusion. "We love you because you're you."

"Yeah, but—"

Kairi flicked his arm. "If you're going to ask us that, then we're going to ask you why you love us."

Riku winced. "Okay, okay, I get it. It's still weird. I'm not used to it. But..." He sighed and looked at both of them. "I'm glad that we're all in love with each other, but you guys can't believe that working this out will be as simple as all three of us being in a relationship with one another."

"Maybe some things are that simple, Riku. Kairi and I love you and each other, and you love us. Why's it got to be complicated?"

"Because it is complicated? We already made one giant mistake last night—and don't argue, you two," he added when Sora and Kairi opened their mouths to protest. "Last night was a mistake. A big one. You two were drunk and I took advantage of that. It didn't matter if you both planned it because I still made that choice knowing that you two weren't in your right minds."

Sora was visibly sulking, but Kairi looked thoughtful as she reached for his hand. 

"Riku's right," Kairi said. "Last night was a mistake. But, Riku, you weren't the only one who made a mistake. Sora and I should have stopped as soon as we realized how drunk we were getting, but we didn't. We knew the punch was spiked and that we couldn't hold our alcohol, but we kept drinking anyway."

"I was scared that you'd reject us," Sora muttered. 

"Anyway," Kairi cut in when Riku tried to speak again, tugging both of them closer to her, "the point is that everyone here made a mistake last night. Despite that, I want us to succeed. I want the three of us to be the three of us, and even if it is hard, I still want to try. You two are worth it."

"I agree," Sora said, and he looked right into Riku's eyes as he said it. "You and Kairi are worth anything."

"I—" Riku began, but the weight of Sora's gaze was too heavy for him to bear. "How can you two be so confident that it'll work? What if we're torn apart? I'm terrified of losing you two."

"We're not confident. At least, I'm not. I don't know about Sora."

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Sora said, but he was smiling as he said it. "But you two are worth it. We're not going to be torn apart, Riku. Not by this."

"How do you know that?" He shook his head when Kairi and Sora stared at him. "Look, I'm not saying no. I want this. I've wanted this for a long time, but I don't want to be unrealistic about it."

"Even if things don't work out for the three of us, I don't think we could ever be torn apart." Kairi gave his hand a squeeze, then smiled when he looked at her. "Both of you are a part of my heart. That will never change."

"Think about how many fights we've had since we've known each other," Sora added. "We've had some big clashes before, and you were gone from us for a while. In the end, though, that didn't change us. Even when we change, our feelings for each other don't." He reached out and took hold of Riku's free hand, bringing it over his heart and clutching it tight. "Trust us. Trust yourself, Riku."

Standing there, hands being held by the two people he loved the most in the world, Riku stopped resisting. There was the feeling of something like a wall crumbling in his heart, and a rush of warmth and relief filled him so suddenly that it became hard to stand, and he wobbled on unsteady legs before stumbling back to the bed and falling on it, dragging Sora and Kairi with him.

The two of them hovered above him worriedly, never once letting go of his hands or each other's, but when Riku started to laugh, some of the concern left their eyes, and Riku smiled.

"This is such a bad idea," he said, but he was giddy and looking at the two of them above him only made him smile wider.

"No," Kairi said. "This is a good idea."

"The best idea we've ever had," Sora added, and Riku laughed again.

"If you're the one saying that, then we're doomed for sure. I guess," he added once Sora started pouting, "that if I have to be doomed, though, I'd rather be doomed with the two of you."

Kairi snuggled up to him. "Don't worry. No matter what happens, our fates our intertwined. So does this mean that you're okay with this? With us?"

Riku nodded and pulled her closer as Sora curled up against him on his other side. "Yeah. Although...I'm still going to need time to get used to it and work on me, I guess."

"We can go slow. We can start with you taking us on a date. One at a time if that's easier."

"It'll probably be easier on our schedules, but, yeah. Dates are nice."

They spent a few minutes cuddling in silence, which was ultimately broken by Sora shifting awkwardly before asking:

"Soooooo... How many dates do we have to go on before we can start making out?"

"Sora!" Kairi scolded, kicking him in the shins and getting Riku in the process.

"What? I wanna know!"

Riku rubbed the offended shin with his other foot as he tried his best to convince the blood flowing to his cheeks to go somewhere else. "One-track mind, Sora."

"It's a legitimate question! And, hey, at least I didn't ask how many dates we had to go on before we could have sex again."

"You are clearly thinking it, though," Riku muttered, wishing that he had another hand so that he could cover his face with it without letting go of anyone's hand. "One. Track. Mind."

"And tactless, to boot."

"Kairiiiiii. Rikuuuu."

"Stop whining. ...One."

Sora bolted up. "Really?"

"Really," Riku repeated, knowing that his face was probably as red as Axel's hair. Kairi laughed softly next to him and whispered that he was too soft on Sora, which, Riku knew, was entirely true.

"Then," Sora asked, moving so that he straddled Riku, "kissing on the first date is okay?"

Riku's face was transitioning from shades of Axel's hair to shades of Kairi's. "Kissing before the first date is fine, too."

"I kissed him earlier," Kairi said, sounding way too smug for someone who was supposed to keep Sora in check. 

"So it's only fair that I get to kiss you too, right, Riku?"

Riku was fairly certain that his face could be used as a portable heater. "Well, if we want things to be _fair_ , yes."

"In that case," Sora said, and suddenly he was close—so close that the only thing Riku could see were how blue his eyes were, "may I kiss you?"

Riku answered by leaning up and pressing his lips to Sora's, who responded by leaning in and pushing Riku back down. Sora's kiss was all enthusiasm and energy, a marked difference from Kairi's kiss that started hesitant and then later grew bold yet stayed sweet.

When they parted, Riku noticed a few things. First, Kairi was watching them intently with a dreamy smile on her face. Second, Sora's face looked very flushed, and he was smiling triumphantly. Third, Sora was hard.

"Did you just," Riku said, pressing up slightly and then watching Sora intently as he gasped, "get hard just from kissing?"

"I like kissing," Sora whined, his face growing as red as Riku's face felt. Kairi burst into laughter and turned to muffle it into Riku's shoulder.

"It was a chaste kiss!"

Sora flopped on Riku and buried his flaming face into his chest. "I really like kissing."

"No kidding," Riku muttered, and Sora punched him on the shoulder.

"Augh, whatever. You're in my boner debt."

Riku stared at the top of his head blankly. "What."

"A boner debt," Sora repeated. "You made me get a boner, so now you're in my boner debt until I give you a boner or you, uh, get me off."

"I," Riku began, but then found out that he could not come up with a response to what had to be the stupidest thing he'd ever heard in his life. "What? You've got to be kidding me."

Sora pouted. Kairi shook her head solemnly.

"No," she said. "He's completely serious."

"Do I want to know what kind of things you two get up to in order to come up with something as stupid as the concept of a _boner debt_?"

Sora lifted his head and waggled his eyebrows in what was probably supposed to be a seductive manner, but ended up making him look like he had two dancing worms on his forehead. "I could show you."

Riku gave him a flat stare as he questioned how he managed to find himself in a three-way relationship with the two unsexiest people he had ever met in his life.

"You'll get used to the idea in time," Kairi said before pressing a kiss on his cheek. "We also have vagina debts."

"Oh, god," Riku muttered as he buried his face in his hands. Around him, Kairi and Sora burst out in bright laughter, and Riku couldn't help but to smile upon hearing the sound of the two people he loved most being happy because of him.


End file.
